sb. pl. Forms: 7–8 trossers, trowzers, 7– trowsers, trousers, 8 trouzers. See also STROSSER. [An extended form of TROUSE sb.2, cf. other words indicating a pair, as tweezers; perh. directly after DRAWERS.]
† 1. = TROUSE sb.2 1, TREWS. Obs.
[1599: see STROSSER.]
1613. Fletcher, Coxcomb, II. iii. I’le haue you flead and trossers made of thy skin to tumble in.
1633. T. Stafford, Pac. Hib., I. xviii. (1821), 191. Cloathed in a simple mantle, and torne trowsers.
1676. Wiseman, Chirurg. Treat., I. xviii. 85. By laced Stockings and Trowzers the Swellings in his Legs and Thighs went off.
1752. C. Stewart in Scots Mag. (1753), 293/1. Stewart had on blue and white trowsers.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xi. I. 315. The emperor Tetricus … as well as his son, whom he had created Augustus, was dressed in Gallic trowsers, a saffron tunic, and a robe of purple.
1778. Ld. Carlisle, Lett., 21 June, in 15th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. VI. 345. The gnats in this part of the river [Delaware] are as large as sparrows; I have armed myself against them by wearing trousers, which is the constant dress of this country.
1789. M. Madan, Persius (1795), 80, note. The bracca was a peculiar dress of the Medes, which like trowzers, reached from the loins to the ankles.
1834. Planché, Brit. Costume, 8. They wore close trousers, which they called bracæ; these trousers, an article of apparel by which all barbaric nations seem to have been distinguished from the Romans, being made of their chequered cloth, called breach and brycan, and by the Irish, breacan.
2. A loose-fitting garment of cloth worn by men, covering the loins and legs to the ankles; sometimes said to have been worn over close-fitting breeches or pantaloons. (Also a pair of trousers.) Cf. TROUSE sb.2 2, PANTALOON 3 c.
In early use esp. worn by sailors, later by soldiers, and gradually becoming common from about 1820. Now distinguished from breeches chiefly by covering the whole leg, and by not being shaped so as to fit tightly: cf. BREECH.
1681. Lond. Gaz., No. 1061/4. John Clarke, a stout Man,… in … a pair of Buck skin Leather Breeches … (sometimes wearing Trousers over his Breeches) rid away on a Grey Gelding.
1718. Ozell, trans. Tournefort’s Voy. Levant, I. Life 9. All he could afford himself was a Thrum-cap, Linen Trowzers, and a Pair of Wooden Shoes.
1731. Gentl. Mag., Nov., 474/2. Instead of Breeches, he proposes that the Ladies should wear Trowsers, which will be particularly convenient for those who have not handsome Legs.
1742. J. Parry, True Anti-Pamela, 216, note. Trowzers are commonly worn by those that ride Post down into the North, and are very warm; at the same Time, they keep the Coat, Breeches, &c., very clean, by being wore over them.
1748. Anson’s Voy., I. iii. 29. Orellana and his companions … having prepared their weapons, and thrown off their trouzers and the more cumbrous part of their dress, came all together on the quarter-deck.
1768. Wales, in Phil. Trans., LX. 108. Breeches made of seal, or deer skin, much in the form of our seamens short trousers.
1772. Cook, Voy. S. Pole, I. ii. (1777), I. 20. I … gave to each man the fearnought jacket and trowsers allowed them by the Admiralty.
1786. Gentl. Mag., Sept., 814/1. Twenty-five boys belonging to the Marine Society, in new jackets and trowsers.
1814. Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1836), XI. 594. I beg leave to recommend that 20,000 shirts, 20,000 pairs of socks or stockings and 6,000 pairs of trousers should be sent out to Tarragona.
1869. E. A. Parkes, Pract. Hygiene (ed. 3), 415. Shortly before or during the Peninsular war trousers were introduced.
b. The loose bag-like drawers or pantaloons worn by both sexes in Mohammedan countries.
1775. R. Chandler, Trav. Asia M., xix. 66. Their ladies wear … large trowsers or breeches, which reach to the ancle.
1810. E. D. Clarke, Trav. Russia (1839), 62/1. The dress of a Cossack girl is elegant; a silk tunic, with trousers fastened by a girdle of solid silver [etc.].
1815. Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul (1842), II. 57. The Murwuts … are tall, fair men, and wear a pair of loose trowsers, something thrown over their shoulders, and a handkerchief tied round their heads.
1882. Floyer, Unexpl. Balūchistan, 256. He had the ordinary white calico trowsers.
1913. D. Bray, Life-Hist. Brāhūī, ii. 31. A girl should be put into trousers as soon as she is two, or at the most four.
c. White frilled or trimmed drawers reaching to the ankles (or nearly so), worn by women and girls, and young boys, about the second quarter of the 19th c.; pantalettes.
1821. Shelley, Lett. to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 15 Aug., in Ingpen, Lett. (1909), II. xix. 900. She was prettily dressed in white muslin, and an apron of black silk, with trousers.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xiv. Her little girls … wore little white trousers with frills round the ancles.
1844. Ladies’ Hand-bk. Haberdashery, 56. Ladies’ Wearing Apparel…. Trowsers with Worked Bottoms.
1859. Geo. Eliot, A. Bede, xii. His hearty affection for the Rector dated from the age of frocks and trousers.
1873. J. Ashby-Sterry, Shuttlecock Papers, 95. Girls … in short frocks, frilled trousers, and broad blue sashes.
3. In sing. form trouser, in various senses. (See also attrib. and combinations in 4.)
[1609: see STROSSER.]
1702. Addison, Dial. Medals, i. Wks. 1766, III. 17. Of the old British Trowser.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., Introd. All the rest was mustache, pelisse, and calico trowser.
1885. R. L. & F. Stevenson, Dynamiter, 2. Besides the clothes in which you see me, I have scarcely a decent trouser in my wardrobe.
b. A single leg of a pair of trousers (in quots. transf.).
1893. Mary Cholmondeley, Diana Tempest, v. A little palm near had its one slender leg draped in an impromptu Turkish trouser, made out of an amber handkerchief. Ibid. (1899), Red Pottage, ix. One melancholy Scotch fir embarrassed by its trouser of ivy.
4. attrib. and Comb. (more usually in sing. form trouser), as trouser-brace (BRACE sb.2 9 b), -button, -finisher, -hem, -knee, -leg, -lining, -making, -pocket, -wearer; trouser-wearing adj.; also trouser-band, the waistband of a pair of trousers; † trouser breeches, = sense 1; trouser-press, a contrivance for pressing the legs of trousers so as to produce a crease; trouser-presser, a workman engaged in ironing trousers; also = trouser-press; trouser-stockings, ? waterproof overalls or leggings used by fishermen; trouser-strap, a strap passing beneath the instep and attached at each end to the bottom of the trouser-leg; trouser-stretcher, a device for stretching trousers so as to take out any ‘bagginess.’
1892. Zangwill, Childr. Ghetto, I. 221. His blue bandana … tied round his *trouser-band.
1896. A. Morrison, Child of the Jago, 126. He gave a hitch to his trousers-band.
1875. Bedford, Sailor’s Pocket Bk., viii. (ed. 2), 286. The shoulder-strings … cross behind like *trouser-braces.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), II. 1. James … hated novelties. He … hunted in the most cumbrous and inconvenient of all dresses, a ruff and *trowser breeches.
1898. Daily News, 22 Nov., 7/3. Stanley once characterised the Heligoland Treaty as follows: ‘England received in exchange for a *trouser-button a new suit of clothes.’
1887. W. Westall, Her Two Millions, III. ii. 20. She was a *trousers finisher.
1896. Mrs. Caffyn, Quaker Grandmother, 251. John … flicked an atom of fluff off his *trouser-knee.
1849. Cupples, Green Hand, xiii. (1856), 130. One of his long *trowser-legs.
1901. G. Douglas, House w. Green Shutters, xxiii. 239. Sometimes they stopped—their trouser-legs flapping behind them—and trumpetted loudly into red silk handerchiefs.
1909. Eliz. L. Banks, Myst. Fr. Farrington, 37. A strip of his *trousers-lining.
1906. Daily News, 8 March, 6. Her work of *trousers-making yields her a good deal less than a penny an hour.
1856. Geo. Eliot, Ess. (1884), 106. His hands stuck in his *trouser-pockets.
1898. W. W. Jacobs, Sea Urchins, Money-changers (1906), 223. The fare … rose slowly and felt in his trousers-pocket.
1905. H. A. Vachell, The Hill, iii. 49. He possessed a *trouser-press.
1887. Pall Mall G., 4 Nov., 8/1. They had heard Allman, the *trousers-presser, say, ‘Now, gentlemen, I’m going to talk sedition.’
1906. Daily Chron., 25 April, 8/2. The crease … savours of the automatic trousers-pressers,… rather than of the hot iron of the tailor.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 45. The *Trouser-Stockings … and Cork Jackets are indispensable adjuncts.
1841. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., IV. 176/2. Improved apparatus to be attached to trowsers, commonly called *trowser-straps.
1860. E. Falkener, Dædalus, Mod. Art, ii. 202. German hobnailed boots and leather trouser-straps.
1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 590. Xenia, who is the one and only *trouser wearer in our band, spends fifty per cent. of the night on one leg struggling to get the other in or out of these garments.
c. 1820. Hugh Bourne, Lett., in N. & Q., 9th Ser. IX. 489/2. That *trousers-wearing, beer-drinking Clowes will never get to heaven.
Hence Trouser v. slang, trans. to put (money, etc.) into the trouser-pocket, to pocket; Trouserdom, the realm of trousers; the wearing of trousers; Trousered a., wearing or dressed in trousers; also fig.; Trouserettes, girls’ ‘knickerbockers’; Trouserian a. nonce-wd., of or pertaining to trousers; Trouserless a., without trousers; wearing or having no trousers.
c. 1890. G. H. Kingsley, Sport & Trav., vi. (1900), 183. The sherif *trousered the dollars!
1892. Labour Commission Gloss., s.v., To trouser is to put money into one’s pocket, that is, to earn; a slang expression used by cabmen.
1882. Pall Mall G., 27 Oct., 2. The regeneration of feminine attire will never be compassed by the way of *trouserdom.
1789. M. Madan, Persius (1795), 81. The *trowzer’d Medes.
1825. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), I. 319. The tarred, and trowsered, and blue-and-buff crew whose very vicinage I … detest.
1878. Stevenson, Inland Voy., 49. My pipe … was … pretty well ‘trousered,’ as they call it [cf. Fr. culotter un pipe].
1895. L. Dougall, Question of Faith, 277. The roadside elms, trowsered to the ground with brush of branches.
1874. J. Ashby-Sterry, Tiny Trav., 284. Troublesome Twelve in … the frilliest of frilled *Trouserettes.
1896. Godey’s Mag., April, 387/2. Bloomers, very short tunics, or trouserettes..
c. 1820[?]. L. Hunt, Secret Existing Fashions, Ess. (1887), 276. Round comes the kindly *trouserian veil,… the legs retreat … into retirement.
1857. in Ld. Dufferin, Lett. High Lat., vii. 124. Before I knew where I was, I found myself sitting on a chair, in my shirt, trowserless.
